Talk:He Woke in Darkness
Silver says this is a "very disturbing" story. I got the same impression from the title. Anyone know what it is? Turtle Fan 18:16, October 31, 2009 (UTC) :I think it's race-reversal (blacks are dominant) story with the Chaney-Schwerner-Goodman murders as a model. I really don't know where I picked that up, though. TR 18:36, October 31, 2009 (UTC) ::That does sound creepy. Oh well, I'll probably pick up Reincarnations at some point or other. Turtle Fan 20:15, October 31, 2009 (UTC) :Well, I've just found this one on-line. Not posting any links, just in case. TR 18:47, May 9, 2011 (UTC) ::In case what? It's so disturbing that we end up wishing we'd never read it? Turtle Fan 19:09, May 9, 2011 (UTC) :::In case the intellectual property police decide to act. I can't tell if the website that put it up had HT's permission. TR 19:15, May 9, 2011 (UTC) ::::Oh, oh, I see. I'm so used to the Tor.com stories that I've forgotten these things can be pirated. ::::Have you read the story? Is it as grim as Silver suggested? Turtle Fan 00:23, May 10, 2011 (UTC) :::::It is (insofar as the actual incident was horrible), but then HT throws us a twist, and it feels more...just, I suppose is the best word. I'll play around with in the next couple of days. TR 00:28, May 10, 2011 (UTC) Critique and such A couple of thoughts on this one: it's actually a pretty solid story from HT. It's real strength lies in the fact that HT quite consciously plays on his readers' expectations of parallelism, and then pulls the rug out. At the same time, the systematic murder of the three men is quite vivid and horrifying. :From my secondhand consumption it sounds like it exceeds my expectations. But what's the rug-pulling? Turtle Fan 02:34, September 2, 2011 (UTC) ::That it isn't AH at all, just a nightmare. TR 14:50, September 2, 2011 (UTC) :::Still parallel. The title provides a hint, though it's obvious in retrospect. I suppose that the fact that it's not AH would prevent us from adding "Racial Hierarchy Reversed" when we unfreeze IFiMT, comparing this story with Mississippi in DSA. Turtle Fan 18:12, September 3, 2011 (UTC) It also leads me to speculate about some of HT's writing decisions. I think we can count on our fingers the number of HT stories set within HT's lifetime, and the number of stories with a POD during HT's lifetime is smaller still. I wonder if the reason he stays in WWII and the ACW, e.g., is that stories like this are a little too "close to home", and he feels he might not be as objective. :That could be. That might also be why every time he writes about a living person it's Haldweim and Lynton and W and a British Prime Minister known only as "she." And here I always figured he was afraid of some sort of defamation of character accusation; it may very well be just to maintain detachment. Turtle Fan 02:34, September 2, 2011 (UTC) ::In the cases of Haldweim and Lynton, I'd agree with your hypotesis. :::Yay! Turtle Fan 18:12, September 3, 2011 (UTC) ::W and O, I argue, are keeping in the tradition of satire where the satirist doesn't come out and say who they've targeted, but makes it clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together just who they are satirizing. :::True. Turtle Fan 18:12, September 3, 2011 (UTC) ::The female PM is tossed off so randomly, I don't know what to make of it. :::We have an article on Mrs T, and since she's our only postwar PM I'd sure hate to lose it. Turtle Fan 18:12, September 3, 2011 (UTC) ::And then there's Stassen playing himself in Colonization, so, who knows. TR 16:56, September 2, 2011 (UTC) :::He was insignificant as could be in the first two Col books; no less a name tossed out there than the great Josephe Patricke Kennedye Juniore (wait, sorry, wrong timeline) as his opponent. A, when he becomes President, was released about six weeks after he died, which means he was alive when it was being written; but he'd hung up his perennial candidate dancing shoes after the 1992 GOP convention, and anyway hadn't been relevant in decades. Waldheim hadn't been relevant in decades when ItPoME was written, either, though. Turtle Fan 18:12, September 3, 2011 (UTC) Because HWiD is pretty nakedly wish-fullment as well. Not the "blacks rule whites" part, but the idea that Price (and maybe everyone else) got what was coming to them, even if the legal system of the country couldn't quite get at them. And I wonder if HT feels he could not be sufficiently detached writing about events he can remember with some level of clarity. TR 16:54, September 1, 2011 (UTC) :Yes, it is comforting to think there's cosmic/karmic justice in which the wicked will be punished. Turtle Fan 02:34, September 2, 2011 (UTC) Redefining the POD I think "set in OTL" and emphasizing the "it was only a dream" theme is a weak cop-out when categorizing this story. If there is a Lewis Carroll Wiki, I'm sure it doesn't limit itself to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass is a realistic story, set in England in the 1860s and is about a girl who does nothing but have silly dreams." If such a wiki exists, then I imagine it treats the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Queen of Hearts, etc., as actual characters in the story with in-universe biographies. Alice's dream world is much more "real" from a dramatic standpoint than her own "real" world, which I think should be the case here. Dramatically, the world of Price's dream is just as "real" as any of the alternates visited by Crosstime Traffic. So, I think the Alice in Wonderland rule should apply here: the story template should be "POD: Unknown", Price's death by being shot and then buried alive by the BKV should count as an alternate death in his character template, etc., etc. Just like the CTs, it's a story with different portions set in different timelines. See also the picture book series Tellos by Todd Dezago and Mike Wieringo for why the dreaming portions of a story should not always be discounted.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 20:28, September 16, 2016 (UTC) :Unlike Lewis Carroll, most of Turtledove's works are set in the real world, whether AH or in the future, and not in a dreamland. Therefore, I think your analogy is fatally flawed. Turtledove writes of real people, therefore calling it all a dream is a more accurate reflection of the story. It is not a "cop-out" but a summary of the story. I think you are too fixed on Turtledove, the Master of Alternate History, to properly gauge stories that are not strictly AH. Your talk of POD is a case in point; its not relevant to the story since there isn't one, just some of the trappings (or tropes if you will) of AH. ML4E (talk) 21:14, September 16, 2016 (UTC) :Agreed wholeheartedly. I was going to raise all your points, probably with less eloquence and more annoyance. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:02, September 16, 2016 (UTC) ::Also agreed. TR (talk) 22:37, September 16, 2016 (UTC)